


Saturday's Child

by thegreatpumpkin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 17:00:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5936101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatpumpkin/pseuds/thegreatpumpkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Friday's child is loving and giving, Saturday's child works hard for a living.</i> Curufin and Celebrimbor bond over Curufin's work. Or; three times Celebrimbor was sent out of the forge, and one time he wasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saturday's Child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenofOblivion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenofOblivion/gifts).



> QueenofOblivion requested: "I would really love to see a detailed family bonding from either Feanor and Curufin. Maybe to the public, these two characters are somewhat aloof and cold but when they are with their family, they became a really attentive parent to their children/child and would even spoiled them behind the wife's back."
> 
> I hope this suits!

On a good day, Curufin's focus was complete. Time would melt and flow around him like wax from a casting mold; his mind became a vast, vanishing horizon of clear space within which to work, and his capacity for creation was just shy of infinite.

Today was a good day. Today was a flow day.

He had modeled a half-dozen intricate pieces and cast two more whose molds were set; now he was smoothing away the sprue marks in yesterday's pieces, his thoughts already running ahead to how they would all—ultimately—come together.

It wasn't that he didn't _notice_ the small pair of wide silver eyes peering over the edge of the workbench. It was simply that his mind, occupied at that moment with working out a gear ratio, queued the image for later processing. By the time he came back around to it, it had been several minutes, and he shook himself as if he had only just seen Celebrimbor there.

"How did you get there?" It was a rhetorical question, of course—not because Curufin wasn't interested in the answer, but because Celebrimbor was still at the level of discourse which involved nonspecific monosyllables and distressed pointing.

At the moment, though, he was neither distressed nor monosyllabic. He was silent and enraptured, watching his father's hands at work, even though he could barely see over the edge (and even then, Curufin realized, it was only because he stood atop the low tool chest pushed up against the side of the workbench). The workspace was anything but child-safe, and yet...Curufin's hands went about their work as he spoke, making sure Celebrimbor could see what he was doing. "Where is your nurse, I wonder? We'll have to replace her, though I fear you've grown attached. _Imagine_ , letting an only child—Fëanor's grand-child, no less—wander unattended into a forge." Despite his words, his tone was gentle, and he smiled just slightly. It wasn’t, precisely, a _nice_ smile—those did not look at home on Curufin’s face—but it lacked the venom of his usual smirk.

The nurse appeared in the doorway a few moments later, her eyes red-rimmed and her face salt-caked, exclaiming with relief. “Tyelpe! I was worried half to my grave, oh, how could you frighten me like that—forgive me, my lord, I know he isn’t meant to be down here, he was napping and I didn’t realize he could get out—”

 _Take him to his mother, immediately, and then you may show yourself out as your services will no longer be required._ It hovered on the tip of his tongue, ready to be delivered—but then Celebrimbor squealed with delight at seeing her, running to her on tiny, chubby legs and then pointing enthusiastically back at his father.

Instead, Curufin said, “Take him out of here, the forge is dangerous. And don’t let him out of your sight again.”

~

Nerdanel had sung to all her sons as children; little rhymes of her own invention, or popular songs with silly words swapped in for the real ones. She had a crow’s voice, but to a nestling, there is no sound sweeter than its mother’s cawing.

_Cu-ru-fin-wë, A-ta-rin-kë, which one is the rondel?  
Cu-ru-fin-wë, A-ta-rin-kë, which one is the claw?_

She had taught him to identify all of her sculptor’s tools that way, a song and a game. Curufin thought of her now, as he held his son in his lap, sitting just far enough back from the worktable that small hands could not reach the tools there. Probably she sang to Celebrimbor as well, when she exercised her grandmotherly right to whisk him away, but Curufin did not think she would mind if he borrowed this one song.

 _Tyelperinquar_ didn’t scan very well, but then again, most of Nerdanel’s other songs didn’t either. Maglor’s musical aptitude was not from her side, to be sure.

“See if you can remember, now.” Curufin’s singing voice was sweeter than his mother’s, though few ever heard it to know. “Cu-ru-fin-wë, Tyel-per-in-quar, which one is the mandrel?”

“That one!” Celebrimbor pointed.

Curufin, teasingly, indicated the hammer beside it. “This one?”

“No, Atto, that one!”

“ _This_ one,” said Curufin again, making as if to pick up his shears.

Celebrimbor giggled and flopped his head back against Curufin’s chest, with the kind of exaggerated exasperation only a small child can convey. “Atto! No! The long one!”

“You’ve outsmarted me again,” Curufin said, and picked up the mandrel. “What is it used for?”

Again, Celebrimbor flailed dramatically. “No, do the song!”

Curufin laughed. Everything had to be just _so_ —well, no denying this child was his. “All right, all right. Cu-ru-fin-wë, Tyel-per-in-quar, what’s a mandrel for?”

“It’s—” Celebrimbor sat up, blinking. “I forget.”

“All that, and you can’t even remember?” Curufin set the mandrel back on the table and tsked softly. “I’m afraid you know what happens next.”

“No, Atto!” Despite his protest, Celebrimbor was grinning.

“Yes. There’s nothing for it, Tyelpe, you will have to be tickled.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

Celebrimbor shrieked with laughter as Curufin scooped him close with one arm and used the other hand to tickle his ribs, trying to squirm away and gasping between giggles. “No, no, Atto! I remember! I remember!”

“Oh yes?” Curufin adopted a very serious expression, and Celebrimbor nodded eagerly. “Go on, then.”

“I...” Celebrimbor glanced at the mandrel, then back at his father, just barely holding back laughter. “I forget again!”

Curufin tutted in mock dismay. “Crafty child! Always trying to trick your poor father. Well, no matter what you try, you won’t get me to give you the answer. I’m certainly not going to tell you it’s used to form and size rings.”

“Atto, I remember! It’s for rings!”

“What? How did you know that?”

“You _told_ me!” Celebrimbor collapsed into giggles again, and Curufin smiled, shaking his head.

“I just love when you rile him up after his bedtime.” He looked up at the voice of his wife, low and gently sarcastic. Maenathel’s small frame filled the doorway, her arms crossed, though she looked to be suppressing a smile.

“It is later than I realized,” Curufin said with dignity—a challenge when he still had a lapful of giggling toddler. “I did think you would come and fetch him sooner. I have important work to do, you know.”

Her mouth quirked as he stood and handed Celebrimbor over. “Very important, I’m sure.”

Celebrimbor did not want to be handed; he clung to Curufin’s leather apron, little purchase though it gave him. “No, we have to do the hammer! Atto, ask me the hammer!”

“Not tonight,” Curufin said, a little gruffly. “It’s bedtime, and I am busy.” Maenathel fixed him with a reproachful look, but he ignored it, moving back to the table to begin reordering his tools.

“Don’t work too late,” she said after a moment, then took Celebrimbor off, murmuring to him as he argued how very, very _un_ -tired he was and how unfair bedtime was.

When they were gone and the forge was silent again, Curufin set to work on a commission, and found himself humming a familiar tune into the quiet.

_Cu-ru-fin-wë, Tyel-per-in-quar…_

~

All Celebrimbor wanted for his begetting day—less than a week away, now—was to help his father in the forge.

He was old enough, he _knew_ he was. His uncle had taken him hunting already (though—he realized later, after overhearing an argument through closed doors—not entirely with his father’s blessing). He helped his mother sand and polish and oil her carvings sometimes, though of course he was not permitted near her whittling knives. He was in the forge often, and when his father was in the right mood, he would explain what he was doing as he worked.

But Celebrimbor was not allowed to touch anything, or at least not anything Curufin did not put directly into his hands; and even then, it was never tools, only raw metal he was meant to feel the weight of, or gems his father wanted him to observe through the loupe.

He wanted to make things, to feel the ring of the hammer, the buzz of the file as he smoothed it along a saw-bitten edge. He knew he would not be allowed near the casting, yet, nor the soldering, but he wanted to learn the cold-shaping, the cutting and riveting. He was _ready_.

He’d been carefully making his case for weeks, but as far as he could tell, it made no difference. His father tended to wave him off with an impatient, “We’ll see,” whenever he brought it up. His mother said that she didn’t have any sway over the forge, but she had plenty of tasks for him in her workshop, if he needed something to keep him busy. He even thought briefly of appealing to his grandfather, who had more influence over his father than anyone; but on further consideration, he realized exactly how badly it could go if his father thought Celebrimbor had gone over his head.

Still, he hadn’t quite exhausted his store of ideas.

The forge was quiet and seemingly empty when he arrived, clutching a carefully-rolled sheet of paper. Celebrimbor was sure that was where his father should have been; he stepped inside, peering around as if Curufin would be tucked in a corner or wedged behind the anvil somewhere. “Atar?”

He had not been gone for long, clearly—his tools were still out, though tidily arranged, as always. He must have begun a new commission, Celebrimbor thought, catching sight of cooling molds that he did not recognize. At another time he might have poked around in curiosity, but right now he was on his best behavior, not wanting to jinx even the slightest chance that he might get his wish. Just as he turned to go, Curufin appeared in the doorway, carrying a paper-wrapped bundle that smelled like the fresh sawdust in Maenathel’s workshop.

He was surprised, and not pleased, to see Celebrimbor. “Tyelpe! What have I told you about being in the forge?”

Celebrimbor scrambled to explain himself. “Never without you, Atar, I know—I was looking for you, I thought you were here.”

Curufin shooed him out, angrily, dropping his parcel in a strategic way over something that had been sitting on the worktable—Celebrimbor hadn’t noticed what it was, but he began to feel as if he’d just ruined any chance he’d had of convincing his father. “You didn’t touch anything?”

Celebrimbor shook his head hurriedly. “I just stepped in to look for you.”

Curufin came back to the doorway, blocking it now with his body. “Next time, call out instead,” he said, gruffly. “Did you need something? You can’t stay with me today, I have a lot of work to finish. Your mother will give you something to do.”

Celebrimbor held up his paper as if in self-defense, unrolling it swiftly. “I just wanted to show you...I had an idea.” He offered it up, half expecting his father to wave it away, but after a moment Curufin took it.

He studied it briefly, then looked back to Celebrimbor, quirking an eyebrow.

“It’s a goblet. You said the other day that ours were too easy to knock over, and I thought...if we made them differently, they would be steadier.” He had drawn inspiration from the little stool in his nursery, giving the goblet three legs instead of a stem, spread wide and low from the bowl so that it sat steady even on bumpy surfaces. He had thought perhaps, when his father saw the design, he might want to make it—and of course, that he might let Celebrimbor help. Now it seemed like a foolish thought, a silly little drawing, and he wished he had stayed in the nursery.

Curufin looked at the sketch again, and then—for the briefest moment—his sharp features softened. “That’s a unique solution to the problem.” He sighed, looking down at Celebrimbor, then rolled the paper up again. “I really can’t have you with me today, but let’s take a look at this another day. May I keep it, for now?”

Celebrimbor lit up at the praise, despite the dismissal. “Of course, Atar.”

Curufin tucked the paper into a pocket and nodded, curtly. “Off with you, then. Go trouble your mother.”

Celebrimbor obeyed, daring to hope.

~

Celebrimbor woke early on his begetting day, though he knew better than to stir the rest of the household. His father disapproved of mornings on general principle; like a connoisseur, he preferred Telperion's light once it had aged and mellowed a little. His mother had no particular objection to mornings, but she was given to work late into the evenings, so it seemed unkind to wake her.

In the quiet of his room, he took a small bundle of pine twigs he’d collected the night before and tied them together with red ribbon before tossing them into the fire. A small offering to Aulë. He’d never met one of the Valar and he wasn’t entirely sure what the Smith could even do for him—certainly not intercede with his father—but his uncle always made offerings to Oromë and asked for him to guide his arrows. It seemed appropriate to ask for some sort of luck today.

That done, he crept into the solarium, where breakfast would be laid out later. To his surprise, his parents were already there, his father nursing a cup of dark tea, his mother still bundled in her sleeping robes and looking barely-awake. Still, she smiled when he appeared. “You win, Curufinwë. He _does_ rise early. Good morning, my very grown-up son.” She kissed Celebrimbor on the forehead.

Curufin drained his tea, looking as composed and alert as ever, despite the hour. “You may sleep through his morning jaunts, but I, unfortunately, do not.” He did not smile, exactly, but he had his pleased expression on. “Come here, Tyelpe, let me look at you.”

Celebrimbor presented himself for examination. Curufin smoothed back his hair, turned his chin this way and that, then declared, “Most definitely grown. I suppose you’ll just have to walk, then; you’re too big for me to carry you now.”

“Walk where?” Celebrimbor said, with mounting excitement.

“Breakfast first,” Maenathel said firmly.

“Breakfast first,” Curufin agreed serenely. “Then we shall walk down to the forge together, and you can see what I’ve made for my newly-grown son.”

Well, it wasn’t precisely what he’d imagined, but a gift made by his father was the very next best thing to being permitted to work with him. All through breakfast Celebrimbor tried, and failed, to imagine what it could possibly be. His father must have been in a good mood; he did not scold once, even though Celebrimbor could barely keep still, a bad habit that usually drove Curufin to distraction.

When at last they finished, Celebrimbor waited impatiently at the door. He wanted to take his father’s hand, but he hesitated—if he was too grown to be carried, was he also too grown to need his hand held? He had just resolved to be mature and aloof when Curufin reached out, and before he could stop himself he had put his hand inside his father’s much larger one. Maybe he was not so grown as all that.

Maenathel stayed behind, promising little surprises at supper; Celebrimbor suspected she might go back to sleep once they left, which seemed fair. His father led the way down to the forge, and when they stepped inside, it looked much as it always did.

Curufin sat him down before the work table, where a cloth was draped over something spread across the surface. He moved to the other side of the table, then gestured broadly. “Well, go on, see what it is.”

Celebrimbor, trembling with anticipation, rolled the cloth back. At first he did not understand; all that lay across the surface were his father’s tools. Then he smelled the sawdust-smell again, and realized with sudden delight that they were _not_ his father’s. They were newly-made, sized to fit his own hands. His mother must have carved the handles, and his father would have cast them. They had given him _his own tools._ Which meant—

— _which meant—_

He looked up to see the confirmation of it in his father’s face, only to realize that Curufin was holding up a familiar sheet of paper.

“This is,” he said, smiling very faintly and tapping the image of the goblet with a fingertip, “perhaps a bit too ambitious for a first project, so I’m going to pin it up with my planning sketches until we’re ready for it. It’s always good to have something you don’t yet know how to do in your planning; it’s how we move forward.” He crossed the room to put it up; Celebrimbor could not help but notice he put it in a place of pride, right among his own complicated technical drawings.

Celebrimbor could have floated right up to the ceiling. Instead, he helped his father set up the forge for the day; then, together, they set to work.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Curufinwë Tyelperinquar:_ I go by the headcanon that Curufin, like Fëanor, would name his son after himself. Thus, Curufinwë is Celebrimbor's (Quenya) father-name, and Tyelperinquar is his mother-name.
> 
>  _Maenathel:_ Curufin's wife's name was supplied by Elleth, who is the go-to guru for naming lady OCs.  <3


End file.
